The Philadelphia Phillies’ terrible offseason continues to worsen because, instead of taking ownership of the team’s sad situation, president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski chose to treat angry supporters like ungrateful five-year-olds.
This week, Dombrowski took issue with the common grievance that the team is “running it back” in an interview with sports talk radio station 94 WIP. He questioned whether the fan base would be content with change merely for the sake of change. Sadly, the former decision-maker’s remarks were wholly inappropriate.
Dave Dombrowski misses the mark on Phillies fans’ offseason frustrations
Due to the Phillies’ huge offseason expenditures to re-sign Kyle Schwarber and J.T. Realmuto, the organization has mostly been keeping their aged players. In addition, Dombrowski had to trade away fan favorite Matt Strahm for a lackluster package and release clubhouse disease Nick Castellanos after destroying what little trade value he might have had remaining.
Finally, aside from reclamation project Adolis García, the team failed to add any bats to a lackluster lineup and let homegrown postseason hero Ranger Suárez to go in free agency.
Fans of the Phillies have every reason to be frustrated. This last season was an expected faceplant for a team that was two victories away from winning the World Series in 2022, but has since produced increasingly embarrassing outcomes in every October thereafter.
With Suárez’s departure, Aaron Nola’s career-worst season, and Zack Wheeler’s terrifying injury, the pitching staff, which has been among the best in the league, now has a lot more questions. The offense, which has failed to show up in each of the previous three postseasons, hasn’t received a significant upgrade in that time.
Everyone realized that something needed to happen after Orion Kerkering threw away the team’s hopes of winning a championship four months ago. That is, everyone but Dombrowski.
His first priority, as it ought to have been, was to re-sign Schwarber. In a roster that was already unstable, losing the MVP runner-up would have created an insurmountable hole. Apart from that, though, nothing should have been excluded. The team attempted to sign superstar Bo Bichette, but the New York Mets publicly humiliated the Phillies, leaving them without a plan. Dombrowski then turned back to Realmuto, giving the waning former star a contract worth an excessive amount of money spread over an excessive number of years.
And why did Dombrowski do this? Here’s what he said: “When you look at that, we had the best free agent catcher available in J.T. Realmuto.” If we brought back a lesser player to make a difference, would that make you happier?
The seasoned executive’s false dichotomy, which regards the situation as either/or, is frustrating. Shouldn’t our darling J.T. be the catcher offered a three-year, $45 million contract? You wouldn’t want to switch to a lesser player like Victor Caratini, would you? We wouldn’t, Dave. However, those are not the only choices. We could have redirected the money to another position by downgrading the player behind the plate.
For example, in order to bolster an outfield mix that has been among the worst in baseball since the departure of Shane Victorino and Jayson Werth, we could have signed Caratini for the two years and $14 million he received from the Minnesota Twins and given last summer’s shot in the arm Harrison Bader the two-year, $20.5 million contract he received from the San Francisco Giants.
In addition to distributing the funds among two competent players rather of just one, the team would have saved $10.5 million, which could have been utilized to improve other areas.
Dombrowski’s condescending remarks on the Schwarber deal, such as “We won 96 games last year… If we decided not to run it back and not re-sign Kyle Schwarber back would people be happy,” effectively told fans to be content that they received anything at all. This gaslighting didn’t stop there.
The false dilemma reappears when Dombrowski tells his payers that allowing Schwarber to walk would have been a change, but is that change something we truly want? utterly disregarding the reality that changes can take many different forms. The team’s current situation is maintained by keeping Schwarber on board, but there are other ways the group may have evolved. There are 25 additional players on the team, many of whom have room for improvement.
The Phillies could have added a new third baseman or starting pitcher instead of pretending that Alec Bohm is an above-average player for the sixth consecutive season or continue to wave the white flag every fifth day by allowing Taijuan Walker to start games. But since they still have Kyle Schwarber, we should be grateful.
The Phillies have lost four straight seasons because Dombrowski appears to have trouble accepting change. Your finest players don’t have to be let go in order to make changes. Additionally, change does not include paying exorbitant sums of money for a catcher who is past his prime in order to reunite the band. Change does entail figuring out where you are weak and trying to strengthen those areas.
García’s replacement for Castellanos is a change, but it’s unclear if it will be a good one. substituting a better fielder who is coming off consecutive sub-s for a guy with a negative WAR.It is not the most inspiring shakeup to have 700 OPS years. The same is true for moving Strahm out and adding unknown players like Kyle Backhus and Jonathan Bowlan to the bullpen. They’ll have to replace a former All-Star, and they might be something or nothing.
Dombrowski seems unable to understand what Phillies supporters want, but it shouldn’t be too difficult to understand. Just because we’re angry doesn’t mean we should burn the ship to the waterline. All we want is significant improvements to a gifted team that has fallen short when it counts most. Dombrowski must quit acting as though running it back is sufficient and take all necessary steps to bring this team over the hump if he hopes to win over Phillies supporters.
